New Orleans

I wasn’t going to write about the New Orleans hurricane problems, because people will think I’m blaming the victims. However, someone then asked me if I thought George W. Bush’s response was too slow, so I decided that I would write about New Orleans. To begin with, contrary to popular belief, I do not take up for George Bush on everything. I disagree with him on immigration policies. I think he should have vetoed the completely ridiculous highway bill that Congress recently passed. I didn’t like the Medicare drug coverage because it included everyone instead of basing it on need. I also don’t think baseball is that interesting. However, to say that he was late in the game for Hurricane Katrina is silly. For one, no part of the federal government is built for speed. If that’s what you’re relying on, you will be disappointed. Actually, I’m not sure what constitutes a long time for federal reaction. When the city was flooded, who do you think the guys in orange suits hanging underneath helicopters to pick people off their roofs were? It was the Coast Guard which had been positioned to move in from day one. The military mobilized before the hurricane even hit, but the logistics of moving the Navy and Army will take about 3 to 5 days. Also, I went to Homestead, FL less than a week after Hurricane Andrew hit 1992 for a relief trip. I wasn’t that far behind the National Guard. Remember this – Katrina hit on Monday, but the levee breeches didn’t really begin flooding the city until Tuesday. Yet, the first buses started the evacuation of the Superdome on Wednesday. And by Saturday, 30,000 people were evacuated from the Superdome, and another 25,000 from the convention center by Sunday. That means in the same amount of time it took to get the Guard in Homestead, they had convoyed into a flooded and crime ridden New Orleans and evacuated thousands of people. The federal government wasn’t any slower in this disaster than others. It just looks worse because there were circumstances that other natural disasters don’t have to deal with. Mainly, 80% of the city under water because you were dealing with a city that never should have existed that way. I loved visiting New Orleans, but it doesn't make sense to have half a million people in a city with most living in a bowl between a big lake and a big river and under sea level.

Another factor is that with the federal system of government means natural disaster issues are primarily the province of state and local government. That’s not just in tradition. It’s often by law. George Bush was in contact with the mayor of New Orleans and governor of Louisiana two days before the storm hit to urge them to call for an evacuation. However, by law, that call had to be made by them, and in fact, the city of New Orleans has a hurricane emergency plan that was unfortunately virtually ignored. It stated that school and metro buses would be used to help evacuate people who couldn’t get themselves out. They also had a second evacuation once they realized the levees were breached and the city was flooding on Tuesday. Yet, there’s an AP picture of a couple of hundred school buses not that far from the Superdome that could have been used, but weren’t. By Wednesday, local officials were trying to round up buses from out in the state. Not only was the resource ignored, but by not using them, they were left to be flooded which means they will need to be overhauled or replaced. I’ve been to New Orleans so I know where the Super Dome and Convention Center are, and the streets around them were not washed out yet on Tuesday morning when I watched the news. If they had used those buses, they could have gotten many of the people out. Barring that, once the state decided to open the Superdome as a shelter, they needed to supply it and secure it. I’ve heard about 1000 excuses from New Orleans’ idiot mayor (who has since moved to Dallas and bought a house) about why they didn’t, but he’s obviously failed in his duty. What’s even worse is that we’ve since learned that the Red Cross was ready to take relief supplies to the Superdome after the storm passed on Monday, but state officials stopped them because they wanted the people there to leave. FEMA has been highly criticized, but by law, they are set up to “assist” state and local government during a disaster. They do not take the lead. The mayor and governor abdicated their responsibility to their citizens, because they just wanted to wait for the feds. Well, Florida gets hit with hurricanes pretty frequently, but they don’t have near the problems, because they take care of their own and let the feds come in later.

One of the biggest issues was security which is once again, by law, a local responsibility. That is where the local failure was most acute. While the Coast Guard was being videoed rescuing people on roofs, New Orleans police officers were on the news stealing shoes and DVDs from Wal-Mart or they might have been former police officers still in uniform because about a third of the force quit. I wasn’t surprised by that because NOPD has never been known for its professionalism. When I was in Homestead, I was never told to watch out for snipers. Yet, in New Orleans, the police had no control over the criminal element, but that isn’t surprising either. When I was down there, they pretty much let you know that you were safe in the tourist areas, but they couldn’t protect you elsewhere. So, if they can’t control the criminals in good times, why would I expect a hurricane to make things different (although they began confiscating guns from the law-abiding which made sense because then they could no longer defend themselves against the criminals that the police wouldn’t arrest)? The police were even chased out of the convention center. When they went back and caught someone breaking the law, they just took them to a different part of the center. They didn’t even throw them out. The lack of security kept the Red Cross out and caused FEMA to leave the Superdome. Evacuations were halted, and air ambulances stopped coming in for the sick because they were getting shot at. When local control fails, the National Guard gets sent in, but they need to be under control of the governor who has to request them before they get sent in. Louisiana’s governor didn’t even send a request to other states until Wednesday, and when you factor in the deployment time, they were actually quite fast. As long as they are under state control, Guardsmen can do law enforcement duties, but the president cannot send in federalized troops for law enforcement because of Posse Comitatus laws. Unless the governor of a state asks them to, but when the offer was made to Governor Blanco of LA in order to put the active duty troops and the Guard under one command, she didn't want to give up control of the Guard. In fact, it’s still considered iffy whether or not Bush sending in active duty troops was completely legal. It’s pretty obvious that the governor did not use her National Guard troops effectively, but I'm sure if Bush had used the Insurrection Act to federalize the Guard without Blanco's permission, the Democrats criticizing him now wouldn't be accusing him of usurping her authority. Yeah, I'm real sure of that.

And now I think I will blame the victims. I’m not talking about the ones who couldn’t leave because of lack of transportation or infirmity. I’m talking about the ones who chose not to, and got stuck. When government officials up to the President of the United States tell you to go, you go. There’s still people who refuse to leave. I saw one guy say that he didn’t leave even when the flood waters were rising because his car was a five seater, and he had a wife and five kids. Well, two were very young, but he didn’t double stack some kids because he thought the state police might stop him. Is getting a ticket worse than trying to flag down a boat from your roof? I don’t consider him a bad person, but that was a bad decision. If you couldn’t get out of town, but lived in a shack in the bottom of the bowl and didn’t move to higher ground when the flooding started, you made a bad decision. Unfortunately, I have a feeling there was a large group that stayed simply for the opportunity to loot, so I have no sympathy for them. In fact, there are a lot of people who deserved to be shot. Shooting at helicopters, police, telephone repairmen. Give me a break. I’ve been hungry, tired and frustrated, but I think I could refrain from turning into an animal in two days. I know I could refrain from trying to sexually assault someone. Thanks to these lowlifes, help was slower in coming.